Author: hsoi

Here’s why there’s no Flash on the iPhone/iPad/iPod

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

This is a detailed letter from Steve Jobs as to why Flash isn’t on the iPhone/iPad/iPod.

You really need to read the article to get all the details, but briefly:

  1. Flash is a closed system. Yes Apple admits to some level of being closed, but HTML5, CSS, JavaScript are open standards.
  2. The “full web”
  3. Reliabilty, security, and performance. Flash fails in all 3 areas.
  4. Battery life. Flash drains it heavily and quickly.
  5. Touch interfaces. Flash isn’t designed for that.
  6. Inserting a third-party into the user experience can yield less than optimal results.

Speaking as not only a consumer of these products but also as an Apple Developer for almost two decades, I can say Apple’s reasons are quite sound.

One very telling and modern reason?

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

This is quite true. Touch-based is where computing is headed, and Flash just doesn’t grok it. So yes, if you need to rewrite, might as well rewrite in more modern technology.

Anyway, instead of whining to get Flash, we should be encouraging web developers to move beyond Flash.

Always buy AppleCare

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

That’s all there is to say. Always buy AppleCare.

If you buy an Apple product, buy their extended warranty.

It pays for itself.

On my MacBook Pro, I’ve had a keyboard die and it was replaced. I’ve had a battery swell up, it was replaced. In fact, I just had a second battery swell up and it too is being replaced. I swear there was something else too, and all taken care of.

I think the AppleCare cost me $169? Something like that. Certainly got my money’s worth.

Of course, one could argue that it’d be better if the stuff worked solidly from the factory. I agree. I think Apple’s hardware was much more robust years ago, but as Apple changed to different standards (e.g. to IDE from SCSI, their own video to VGA and such) well… they had to lower costs, be more competitive, and that seems to also have affected quality to some degree. I still think Apple’s quality overall is good, just that well… shit happens.

I learned that with this latest battery swelling, they’re taking care of it but… my AppleCare runs out in just a matter of days. Gosh. I’m going to miss that, but am glad I got this one fixed under the wire.

Meantime yes. Buy AppleCare. Always. It pays off.

Deer and motorcycles just don’t mix

/ hsoi / 10 Comments

A motorcyclist survives a collision with a deer.

He hit the deer at 70 MPH and was thrown over his handlebars and slid 100 yards… a football field.

He wasn’t able to walk away — he fractured his ankle — but that’s really the worst of things for him. Why did he survive?

The back of his heavy duty protective jacket was completely shredded, while the road cut deep grooves into the side of his helmet.

He was wearing gear. Proper heavy jacket, and a full-face helmet. I don’t know if he was wearing any protective pants or gloves, but likely so.

This is why I’m a fan of ATGATT — All The Gear All The Time.

When you ride in a car, you’ve got a giant steel cage to protect you. When you ride on your motorcycle, you have nothing to protect you except for your riding gear.

I happened upon a motorcycle accident a couple of years ago, before police and EMT arrived. Guy and his girlfriend were thrown off their Harley when a car pulled out in front of them from a side-road. They were pretty messed up, I helped on the scene with first aid, and after EMTs arrived I left. I assume they survived. But based upon what I saw, if they had at least helmets on — even DOT-approved half-helmets — they would have fared a lot better.

I’ve gone down. I’m glad I had gear else I would have been hurting afterwards. The gear took the brunt and I had little more than sore muscles and a bruised ego.

I totally understand not wanting to wear gear. It’s a pain to suit up. It’s bulky. It’s not always comfortable. It can be restraining. And damnit, it’s just not as free! It feels awesome to ride without any gear. Especially here in Texas where there’s a long riding season, and it’s hot… very hot… and gear doesn’t always help with that. So I do understand.

And while the best way to avoid going down is to ride defensively and conservatively, sometimes things just come out at you and there’s nothing you can do… like hit a deer. There’s so many whitetails here in Texas that when I’m riding on the backroads in the mornings, I’m always nervous about deer. I’ve encountered a lot of deer as I’ve been riding, but thankfully no close calls. I’ve hit a couple of birds (they were in the road eating something, didn’t get off fast enough, one bounced off my knee and the other off my windshield). I had a very close encounter with a buzzard on the side of the road that decided taking off right in front of me would be smart… you don’t realize how big those guys are until they’re right upon you. Point is, shit happens.

How does the motorcycle saying go? There’s two kinds of riders: those who have gone down, and those who haven’t gone down yet. It’s not “if” you’ll go down, it’s “when”.

To wear gear or not is a personal choice. It can’t stop everything, but it can prevent a lot of things. My personal choice is ATGATT.

Bass Ackwards

/ hsoi

Some Sprint employees stopped someone robbing an Apple store.

That’s not what’s bass-ackwards.

The Sprint employees were fired for having done so. Why? Policy, of course.

Last week Sprint HQ started asking questions, and shortly thereafter terminated their employment, citing a policy that “employees shouldn’t confront thieves” and classifying their actions as employee misconduct.

Utter bullshit. They do the right thing and this is the thanks they get?

LCP 1, Coyote 0

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

My Governor, Rick Perry, dispatched a coyote with his Ruger LCP. Apparently it was the coyote or Perry and his puppy.

So, .380 may be marginal for self-defense, but seems adequate for coyotes. 🙂

Amusing from the article:

Perry said he carries his .380 Ruger pistol — loaded with hollow-point bullets — when jogging on trails because he is afraid of snakes. He’d also seen coyotes in the area.

We must emphasize the use of those evil hollow-point bullets!!  Of course, amongst gunnies the debate is that with a .380 you may actually be better off using FMJ in order to get adequate penetration.

And honestly, for snakes? I mean, I understand and all, but a .380 against a snake? I’d rather use proper snake-loads for that.

But there’s no question folks. As we humans continue to develop land, the critters on that land won’t go away. Plus as “green friendly” as Austin is, there’s lots of undeveloped land. That land is prime spots for critters to live. While I’m in the city, I back up to a greenbelt that connects to hundreds of acres of land that will never be developed. I get deer, I’ve heard the coyotes (one neighbor has seen them), there’ve been rattlesnakes in my yard, and there’s the suspected bobcat.

“I holler, and the coyote stopped. I holler again. By this time I had taken my weapon out and charged it. It is now staring dead at me. Either me or the dog are in imminent danger. I did the appropriate thing and sent it to where coyotes go,” [Gov. Perry] said.

Perry said the laser pointer helped make it a quick, clean kill.

I can see that. It’s not like you can aim that LCP that easily, so in case like this the laser had to be most helpful. I do wonder how long the shot was.

“It was not in a lot of pain,” he said. “It pretty much went down at that particular juncture.”

DRT. It’s nice to have a Gov. that knows how to shoot. 🙂

Texas law allows people to shoot coyotes if they are threatening livestock or domestic animals. The coyote never reached the dog, which was unharmed, Perry said.

Perry’s security detail was not required to file a report on the governor discharging a weapon, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said.

“People shoot coyotes all the time, snakes all the time,” Mange said. “We don’t write reports.”

It’s good to see that time and money isn’t wasted. 🙂

Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts

/ hsoi

Bloom County was my favorite comic strip. I still love going back and reading the collections I have, and would love to get the new “Complete Collection” series that’s coming out.

One thing that pains me about the strip? My kids can’t enjoy it, at least not like I did. Bloom County was such a reflection of the time in which it was created (which was part of what made it so great), that unless you lived through it or are a student of 1980’s history, you just won’t understand many of the jokes. I will say my kids enjoy Berkeley Breathed‘s books and his sense of humor.

So lacking Bloom County, my kids can enjoy Pearls Before Swine, which is awesome.

Just Smurfy

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Going to the bank today to open an account (more on this eventually).

Wife and I had a little verbal exchange as I was going out the door.

The end result?

I’m now “Glock Smurf”.

That’s the Smurf I want to be.

Glock Smurf.

😉

Code Bubbles

/ hsoi

For you developers out there, check this out: Code Bubbles.

And you really need to watch it full-screen, high def, as it’s hard to understand what they’re talking about without being able to see the text they’re editing.

Present development IDE’s are all about text files… you are organized based upon the way the data is stored. I recall long ago thinking about how that, well, sucked. 🙂  It’s one way to organize things for sure, but why should we be limited by the storage constraints of the system if that’s not the best way to actually organize and access the data? We should be able to abstract that notion away. Isn’t that part of what computers are all about?

I really like how this “code bubble” approach works to allow you to focus on work. The data is just the data. You work with the data. You can see how the data relates to other data. If you need to add your own data, like a flag or a note, you can do that. How you can preserve data that is generated, such as a debug session, and then come back and revisit that at another time be it just starting a second debug session or something you did weeks ago. How documentation, how bug reporting, how annotations are just integrated into the system and so you can hook all of these things together to allow you to work on a problem with all the necessary parts just right there and connected together. Then how you can take all of this and serialize it to share with a colleague?  That’s pretty cool.

I will say, some of the bubbles are a little annoying, mostly because I think the left-to-right hierarchical structure is a bit cumbersome on screen. But that’s a minor nit, and they’ve actually done a fair job at trying to address a lot of that mundane usability minutia. The concepts here are really good, and I figure all it takes is time in use to actually develop and truly refine the workflow. Bubbles may not be the final solution to improving the developer workflow, but it’s great to see someone working to develop a model that rethinks the whole process and strives to improve upon our existing paradigms.

Neat idea.

Is it too much to ask?

/ hsoi / 13 Comments

Is it too much to ask for people to:

  1. Use a turn signal
  2. Check your mirrors
  3. Look over your shoulder (blind spot check)
  4. Ensure your rear bumper is at least oh…. a couple inches ahead of my front bumper, instead of 2 feet behind it)

all before you decide to change lanes in front of me?

Taking my mother to the airport this afternoon I had 5 people nearly put their rear bumper into my front bumper. All because they were changing lanes, into my lane, ahead of me. If I didn’t slam on my brakes each time we would have certainly kissed bumpers.

And every time there was no turn signal. No checking of mirrors. No looking over of the shoulder. And all started changing lanes before they were ahead of me.

Everyone says the drivers in their town are terrible. I’ve visited and driven in many towns throughout this country. And hands down Austin drivers are the fucking worst.

Chicago lawmakers want to put more guns on the street… sorta.

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Chicago Democrats want the Illinois National Guard to be deployed to help with the violent crime on their city streets.

Chicago Democrats John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford said they want Quinn, Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis to allow guardsmen to patrol streets and help quell violence. Weis said he did not support the idea because the military and police operate under different rules.

“Is this a drastic call to action? Of course it is,” Fritchey said. “Is it warranted when we are losing residents to gun violence at such an alarming rate? Without question. We are not talking about rolling tanks down the street or having armed guards on each corner.”

What he envisions, Fritchey said, is a “heightened presence on the streets,” particularly on the roughly 9 percent of city blocks where most of the city’s violent crimes occur.

So what they’re wanting is well… more guns on the streets. If you put more police, or national guardsmen in the street, that’s what you’re wanting: to put more people with guns on the streets!! Only these people are assumed to be good, law-abiding people.

“I’m open to anything that reduces violence. But I have concerns when you mix law enforcement and the military,” Weis said.

Really? So how about improving your gun laws for law-abiding citizens?

Yet the lawmakers said they are coming together because gun violence should be a priority to all Chicagoans.

“No help is too much help” Ford said. “This is not just about the murders. It’s about the crime. It’s about people being stabbed, robbed and in the hospital on life support.”

This isn’t about gun violence. This is about degenerates committing anti-social acts, acts of violence, all because they are able to wield power over the citizenry because the almighty powers that be feel the citizens cannot be trusted to defend themselves but we your almighty caretaker promise to keep you safe — a promise impossible to fulfill. It’s not about guns. If guns were the problem, then why are you proposing putting more guns on the street?!?! Guns are not the problem, it’s the people using the guns that are the problem… or in this case, are part of a proposed solution.

So let’s stop talking about it in a way that falsely demonizes inanimate objects. Let’s look at the real problem, and let’s look at real solutions. Allow your citizens to not be victims. It won’t make the evil go away, but it’s a proven good step in the right direction.